An Anthology of Poetry

Gynaeceums in the Avant-Garde

Women in agony
still brooding for passions swept aside
who, by their own hands
worshiped at the hearth
repeating the mantra:
‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’.

Women swept up
in socio-political condemnation
expected to pass education aside
for maternal instinct
leftover concepts
of the gynaeceum
fostered by interpretations of religious doctrine.

Women alive and well
submit to their own indoctrination
cloistered in communal affairs
and care so little for their own
smothering the next generation
in plastic spheres
to stand agape at the product of their efforts.

Twenty years later
broken and ineffectual children
without the means to stand tall
on their own two feet.

There is merit in breaking the old patterns
and learning to function
as any individual sees fit.

Yet those same women who forsook wisdom
for the doctrines of their forefathers
callous in cronehood
lecture at the modern woman
like the cackling of crows
condescending and dictatorial
that all she lives for
would too become shattered
by the rule of Man
and the placement of motherhood
away from social eyes.

Dictation that a woman’s life
becomes meaningless
stripped of every ounce of self-worth
and all passions torn asunder
by the arrival of the next generation
but they didn’t arrive by happenstance.

Crones suffering the mystique
unwilling to admit self-defeat
forewarn young mothers-to-be
of matters that are not static
Neglecting the ultimate truth and virtue
in how we choose to perceive such changes.